Into The Storm Review

Into The Storm is a film which is directed by Steven Quale who also directed Final Destination 5 (2011) and stars Richard Armitage, Sarah Wayne Callies, Matt Walsh, Max Deacon, Nathan Kress and Alycia Debnam Carey. Into The Storm follows a group of people who are storm trackers that specialise in tornadoes. What they want to do is get close to one and film it for a documentary.

The plot of this movie is fairly straight forward. Basically what it’s about is that Pete who is played by Matt Walsh and Allison who is played by Sarah Wayne Callies start tracking this massive storm. They have very advanced filming equipment and a tank/vehicle filled with cameras called “The Titus”, which they use to drive around in. The vehicle is even able to park and attach itself to the ground so it can’t get blown away by the wind of the Storm. Their mission? To go where no man has gone before, Into The Storm….

The actors in Into The Storm do an okay job and at times a pretty good job. I didn’t feel anyone really stood out as being fantastic but probably the best of the lot was Sarah Wayne Callies who stood out a bit more in her scenes. Richard Armitage who played the assistant principal of the local school when the storm hit, was also entertaining to watch.  The rest of the actors weren’t anything memorable though. But I think it’s more due to the screenplay and the way the story is constructed that meant their characters just didn’t really have any depth to them. It’s one of those movies where a lot of characters do stupid things and you wonder why they would do them in the first place.

Into The Storm isn’t really a movie I would say to go and see for a phenomenal plot or great acting but if you want some good special effects and sounds then you will get what you need. Into The Storm has some really great storm effects and some interesting objects get thrown around by the wind. The tornadoes look great and my seat was shaking a bit from the sounds in the action scenes in the theater I was in (I was sitting next to the speaker) which is something I always like. This is also another movie that has more action scenes than Godzilla (2014) which is a big plus for action fans, but not more than The Expendables 3 (2014).

Steven Quale who directed Into The Storm seems to have decided that shaky cam was the way to go for many of the scenes. It’s one of those movies where many of the characters have their cameras on and film the movie for you to watch, when they run around, the camera shakes and things get scary! I don’t know if people like shaky cam or not, I’m just letting you know that it’s in there. Apart from this I didn’t really mind the directing, I mean there’s not much you can do with a storm. The wind effects were really good and this movie was at its best when the characters were in the storm.

Where this movie kind of falls down a bit though is primarily with the story. If you’ve seen Twister (1996) which is also about a bunch of storm chasers, then you’ve seen this movie and that’s a problem. The concept is very similar and both Into The Storm and Twister are the only two movies I can think of at the moment about tornadoes. The plots however are different though and the characters don’t do the same things. Into The Storm has better special effects and way better action than Twister did and may be more entertaining for the modern audience.

Overall this movie wasn’t that bad. It’s strong points are all the storm scenes which are fantastic at times and the tension that shaky cam brought to the film, can make some scenes very tense. Sarah Wayne Callis and Richard Armitage were entertaining, but the script forgot to put in some character building or memorable scenes, which would have let the actors make an impact in the film. This is a light action thriller where you don’t need to think much and you get some good storm/tornado action over an 89 minute run time, that’s about it.